1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments described herein generally relate to an apparatus and method for coupling utilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Utility connections such as water, gas, control, and electrical, required for certain processes or in certain systems are typically manually and individually coupled and decoupled. However, these methods pose numerous challenges. For example, if an operator fails to turn off the water supply prior to decoupling water connections, a leak may spring. The magnitude of such leaks will typically be great for larger industrial applications. Manually decoupling and coupling utilities one by one is also a time consuming process, requiring longer reconfiguration time, and resulting in longer down-time due to a loss of efficiency. Furthermore, this practice leads to higher incidences of misalignment of utility connections due to operator error. Misalignment can also lead to inadvertent mismatch of connection components, such as placement of a pump lid over a source lid, which can lead to damage to either component. In other instances, such utility connections may be automatically coupled and decoupled in discrete groups, such as coupling water connections separately from high voltage electrical connections. Consequently, yet another deficiency of current coupling systems is that high voltage connections are generally kept separate from water and control connections, necessitating separate connection steps and increasing downtime.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus and method of coupling and decoupling utility connections which targets all connections at once, minimizes leakage, has a higher degree of misalignment capability, is easier to use, avoids damage to utility components in case of unintentional misuse, and results in faster and more efficient coupling.